


Housewarming

by AceofHarts



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 00:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2488286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceofHarts/pseuds/AceofHarts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Madoka has just moved into her own place for the first time, and she feels like something's missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Housewarming

            Madoka sighed, dropped heavily onto a chair, and then shot immediately back out of it with a yelp. Resting on the cushion was a bowl—fortunately empty—she’d failed to collect after Sayaka and Mami had gone home. They’d spent the morning helping her unload all her worldly goods from the back of Sayaka’s truck. The first items out of their boxes had been the cookery and enough dishes to serve a meal on, even though the kitchen table was currently so many slats of wood in a thin cardboard box. She’d meant to set it up this afternoon, but after washing the dishes and breaking out the decorations—as well as hours this morning spent carting boxes that weighed more than she did—Madoka wanted a break.

            Once she’d deposited the bowl in the sink, to be washed as soon as she felt up to it, she sank again onto her chair. _The_ chair. The only assembled piece of furniture in the main room of her new duplex. Maybe that was why, when she looked around the living room, the space looked a bit less cheery and optimistic than it had when she’d first been shown it by the landlord. It had been full then of the previous tenant’s furniture and posters and general mess. Strange. She’d felt perfectly content with the place just that morning, but now, even though she’d set up her bed (and all the stuffed animals on it she’d been unable to part with), it all felt a bit bare.

            And she couldn’t have that, so she set again to work. After a good fifteen minutes of searching through boxes she found one that was bulging with framed photos. She hummed faintly as she set them up. She hung some on the nails already hammered through the plaster, and leaned others against the wall until she found a better place for them. There was no shortage. She had photos of her old house, her mother, her father, her brother, Sayaka and her girlfriend Kyoko, Mami, Hitomi—most of her former classmates and all of her friends—filling up the bare patches of wall.

            Most of them were terrible cellphone pictures complete with blur and absurd candid expressions, and they'd been fitted into cheap frames, but once she’d finished and stepped back to admire her handiwork, Madoka felt much better about this whole business. The room had a bit of its colour back. One of the photos of Sayaka reminded Madoka of what she’d said. ‘Make sure you keep track of your keys. You won’t have your parents in the house to let you in now if you forget them, and it’ll take me half an hour to get here to give you a spare.’

            Madoka decided that the best thing would be to hide her spare key, in case she forgot or misplaced her first one. She marched out the front door and then turned to face her new home. It was a stout little building made of warm-coloured bricks; it had lots of windows to let in the sun, except along the wall it shared with her neighbour. It was the sort of building that looked like two identical but mirror-flipped houses that had somehow fused together.

            And their front doors, as it happened, were right next to one another. Madoka only really realized this when she knelt beside a small bearded lawn ornament, thinking to hide her spare key beneath it.

            “That’s not a good place,” someone said.

            Madoka started but did not immediately get so far as looking up. There was a pair of feet in dark high-heeled shoes before her, standing on the neighbouring doorstep. When Madoka did look up she found a young woman with sleek dark hair looking coolly back at her.

            “Oh," Madoka said, "I’m sorry... Is this your gnome?”

            The other young woman just stared at her for another long moment.

            “No. But that’s a bad place for a spare key. It’s the first place someone will look if they want to break in.”

            “Oh.” Madoka stood, absently brushing grass from her knees as she went. “I didn't even think of it. Does that happen often? People breaking in?”

            “Not very. But it does happen.”

            “Thank you, then, for warning me.” Her hand closed a bit tighter around the key. “I wouldn’t have known. I don’t know anything, really, about living on my own… Would over the doorframe be better? But then, I’m too short…” She glanced around for another few moments before her gaze settled again on her neighbour. “Could you keep it for me?”

            “I…”

            “I’m not _too_ forgetful, but sometimes at home I did lock myself out. I promise I won’t bother you very often.”

            The other girl blinked once, slowly.

            “I warn you about home security, and you immediately give your key to a stranger?”

            “We’re not strangers. Or we won’t be. We’re neighbours." She said this in a way that wasn't over-enthusiastic or overbearing, but also unshakable, like it was a clear but benign fact. She didn't even realize it herself, but her neighbour very much did. "What’s your name? I'm sorry if that's rude—”

            “Homura.”

            Madoka's heart went fluttery. It had been some time since she'd had to make a new friend, and she'd been worried that she'd somehow fallen out of practice. 

            “I’m Madoka. So we’re doing alright, I think, so far.” Her mother had encouraged her to make friends in the neighbourhood, after all. “And also, you just look…” Faced with this same person in these same circumstances, somebody else might have said (or at least thought), intimidating, or tough, or at the very least, experienced. Madoka’s new neighbour expected any of these. What Madoka said was, “…like I can trust you.”  

            Homura’s expression changed in some way Madoka could not define.

            “That’s it,” Madoka said, giving one slight nod to affirm it. There was no trace of flattery or fib in what she said. She saw nothing but kindness and helpfulness in Homura's words and actions thus far. “So could you keep it for me? At least for now, until I find a better place to keep it?”

            After a moment's hesitation Homura held her hand out, and when Madoka placed the spare key on her palm, her long fingers folded over it. It was still warm.

 

            The next morning, just as Madoka was putting the finishing touches on breakfast (her mother and her entire social circle had commanded that she remember to eat, often and well), she heard a noise. The faint rustling from outside caused her to poke her head out of the kitchen, and then to turn off the stove and approach.

            When she opened the door she found Homura stooped over the doorstep, looking like she’d just been caught robbing a bank. She immediately snapped upright and pulled both hands behind her back.

            “Ah—good morning, Homura,” Madoka said. She rubbed at both her eyes to try to get rid of any remnants of sleepiness. It was a wasted effort given that she was still wearing a set of pastel pink pyjamas and that her hair was still tufted and tangled from sleeping, but she felt it was polite. After all, her new friend had just turned up at her door looking perfectly crisp and professional. Well. Aside from her strange intial posture. “Is under the doorframe the best place for a key?”

            “N—no,” Homura said. “I’ll keep your key. I don’t mind.” There was a clunk. Madoka looked down. An aluminum baseball bad with a purple bow tied artfully around its handle had fallen from Homura’s grip. Homura continued to stare straight ahead, expressionless except for the way her lips pressed briefly together. “I was rude yesterday,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’d forgotten to get you a housewarming present. I should have done it as soon as the ‘for rent’ sign went up.”

            “O-oh. Madoka picked up the bat. “Thank you so much. You didn’t have to… Do you play baseball?”

            Homura’s gaze went from a patch of empty air to Madoka’s face—just briefly—and then down to the ground. She glared at it.

            “It’s more for security. But there is actually a park a few blocks away that has a diamond, if you like to play.”

            Madoka was almost certain that Homura was blushing. It might have been just a trick of the early morning light, but Madoka felt much more awake all of a sudden.

            “Thank you,” she said, more softly—speaking now with a bit less neighbourly enthusiasm and a bit more comprehending gratitude. “I’ll keep it by the door. I mean, I won’t—I couldn't use it on anyone, but it’ll make me feel safer.”

            Homura nodded twice, with precision. Just as Homura opened her mouth to excuse herself, and knowing that was what she was going to do, Madoka said, “Have you had breakfast yet? I think I made too much just for me.”

            Homura was definitely, very definitely, blushing. It was too long after sunrise for the light to be blamed for the pink brushing across her cheeks.

            “I will,” she said, and then looked down again and scowled with intensity that would have frightened a lesser neighbour. “But I’m going to clean up after.”

            And she did. As Madoka dried one of the freshly washed dishes and watched Homura fumble a plate back into the dishwater, she decided that yes, this whole duplex situation was going to work out well after all.

**Author's Note:**

> A short prompt-fill from tumblr for a super rad friend <3


End file.
